"Damn," I manage to sputter out, spitting out blood in the process. That last one hit me so hard, I can hear the smooth melody of "Crazy He Calls Me" by Billie Holiday swimming through my head. I gasp for air on the concrete floor. The Chinese officer executes a crisp about face, and marches through the jail cell door, sliding it place and locking it behind him. If only I had enough strength to get up, but Chinese POW torture methods aren't designed to leave a lot of energy in the prisoner. The torture ranges from 100 mile marches in freezing cold, or pure solitude in a white room, deprived of all stimuli.

I roll on my back still gasping for air in the solid concrete cell with the sliding metal door in the front. A sole lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, a "mattress" in one corner, a bucket for excrement in another. Nothing else. I have to admit, I kind of missed it. The pain. The trials. Things seem too easy in power armor, I designed the thing to be too efficient. You can't feel pain, you're just like some kind of God who sends death raining everywhere. It's almost too powerful. Almost. Until it gets taken out by an EMP at point blank range. I should have designed a hardening measure in that shit.

I'm interrupted in my thoughts by the shrieks from the hallway outside my cell. "The f*ck's going on?" I mutter.

All of a sudden, my cell door just implodes as I see something that looks like a demon from hell standing in my door.

"What in the *vulgarity*?!" I exclaim, suddenly recalling all of my energy as I back up towards the far wall, shielding my eyes from the light of the hallway. All of a sudden, a radio clatters beside me. I pick it up to hear none other than General McCarran talking through the receiver.

"Dr. Franks. I trust you're now familiar with Alpha Flight- the first deathclaw unit in the US Army."

"Deathclaws? Is that what they call them? Unimaginative. But..." I pause to glance at the creature's gleaming 14 inch long talons,"Accurate."

"Just get back on the field soldier. Inside the radio I've given you something RobCo cooked up for Vault-Tec called a Pip-Boy. I've uploaded coordinates for a Chinese Superweapon inside. You know the drill. Find it. Disable it. McCarran out."

The Deathclaw lumbers away, presumably to free the rest of my team. With shaking hands, I open the latch to the clunky radio, finding the "Pip-Boy" inside. I slip it on my wrist and power it on. The screen shows a display of Vault-Tec's mascot, the Vault Boy.

"Cute." I mutter. I wonder how the Army got a hold of one of these- neither Mr. House or Vault-Tec are particularly generous when it comes to new tech. In any case, I walk out of my cell into the brightly-lit hallway. Sure enough, Omega Squad is stumbling out of their own adjacent cells, weak, but ready.

"Omega Squad. Give me a role-call and a status report. And make it quick, I wanna go kill some Reds."

OOC: For now, 4 posts needed to advance the RP in non-combat zone. If I need to speed it up or slow it down, I'll change it later. Combat wise, turn based will be off unless I say so. If turn based is off, you do not have to wait for anyone else except the GM to post an action.

"Reporting. Just getting ready." Yusef was ready to create havoc. After all, with his penchant for explosives, he was able to make some with innocuous materials. He has basic improvised explosives ready at his disposal. All he needed was the word.

The interrogators didn't even try as he was insane and deemed unreliable. The "loose cannon" was deemed to betray his would-be allies at a moment's notice. He didn't even look like he was with the US and his act was basically an Arab man at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Roxy had a particularly bad time with the "interrogators", she faced the mental torture well enough given her backround, it didn't help that Roxy did nothing but give them verbal abuse and tips on how to properly strike someone across the face. She was the type of person who taught these things, and she wasnt predjudice about who to tell that they needed do their job better out of spite. Of course for all the bravado she wasn't invincible and she was definitely hurting from what the chinese did to her. Her hair was mussed to say the very least and she had only recently forced back her open eye from it's shut and blackened state, they didn't discriminate by gender in the department of giving beatings she'd give em that. That or the other guys had it that much worse, or even she pissed em off enough to give her the extra cracked rib. When the cell doors open she hesitates, naturally scared even if she didnt show it, wondering if she was plain gonna get executed right there. Hearing some commotion as well as her Co in a conversation convinced her otherwise. She musters up courage and stumbles outside to see the deathclaws in the middle of sweeping the area before seeing her squadmates all present and accounted for. She makes an offhand snark about outsourcing the grunts after pointing out the deathclaws, but given the situation odds were noone caught the full of the joke.

"Roxane Remington here. Personally, I feel like shit." she mutters in an even tone at Franks' question, despite the injuries, keeping her cool in front of everyone else. She attempts to get to attention despite the huritng torso area. "In all honesty though, I feel half-dead....I'll probably live through it though so no worries." she mutters in a tone that is so simple it'd make reading a phone book more boring that it'd normally be. Don't show weakness, at least not until were out of the enemy base, she thought.

Lance had handled the Chinese's torture relatively well, considering. He'd remained silent during the physical torture, aside from the odd laugh or involuntary grunt of pain - he'd faced worse in prison. Hell, he'd gotten worse beatings growing up. He hadn't fared as well with the mental torment. Being dumped in an isolated tank, being unable to hear anything, see anything, smell anything, touch anything... that was the real torture. He still hadn't broken-- he'd die before giving those damn commies anything-- but he felt as if he was on the verge of going nuts. Which, he thought to himself, I probably am.

As his cell door swung open, Lance shook his head, partially to clear it and partially in disbelief at what he was seeing. Large, orange, clawed creatures ripping the Chinese to shreds... at first he was cautious, but upon hearing the rest of his squadmates name off, he figured the creatures were there specifically to bust them out. Striding towards the cell door with a slight limp, he emerged in the hallway, taking a deep breath.

"Reporting. And I dunno about the rest of you guys, but I feel great."

Rose knew some breathing techniques that were soppuse to help her through almost any torture. She had this to say about the quality of the techniques: They didn't *vulgarity*ing work. She gave a small smirk and a bow. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciating her 'captive' audience of a family or two of some friendly rodents. The physical and mental tortures really started getting to her, and it showed; her once pretty, delicate features, now broken and brusied. Blonde short hair, that was perfectly groomed, now filled with dirt and clutter, a very nasty mess. Though, with the short comings, there was some good that came out of it, a trade-off if you will. The tortures helped her grow, become more...mature, but that's probably a strech. She might have imagined it, with the mice, espaciilly the one that stood up right and taught her a few new moves. Again, the torture really did a number on her and she still wants her money back.

The thing is, Rose, was trying to use the rats to escape. Attempting to make a human-sized hole for herself inplace of the holes the rats used to get in and out. Luckily she found a small rock that was oddly shaped like a pick-axe in her cell. She was getting close, but had to break it when she started hearing commotion outside and the door swinging open.

"That's new." Was her tired response for the monster in the doorway. Rose then heard the others. Which oddly gave her renewed vigor as she skipped gracefully outside her cell. She looked both ways, weary of any stragglers that weren't taken out yet. She gave another quick look around, just to be sure as she called out.

Pizza wasn't doing so great. He'd never had any sort of torture training, really all he had was some of the more basic military training and some advanced EW-rated training, he didn't have nearly any of the illustrious background his squadmates had but that was fine, he got what he rated and he thanked Uncle Sam for the chance to become a real American, so he'd have to tough it out. And that's what he did. The Chinese communist bastards were relentless, they knew what to do and how to make a man talk, hell he'd often overhear his squadmates screams, but they didn't know how to make Omega Squad spill the beans, no one could! His squadmates didn't talk, so he wouldn't either. Tiburcio Rolando Vasquez AKA Pizza wasn't going to let Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty down. He wasn't going to give them a reason to cry.

The doors swung open and he prepared himself for another torture session.

"OH SAY CAN YOU SEE BY THE DAWNS EARLY LIGHT O-Oh what the FUCK?" Pizza's skeleton nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw the giant thing walk into the room. It made no move to attack him beyond sniffing the air, and then lumbered back out of the room. "Score," Pizza said after he got his bowels under control. "I must smell like shit if it didn't eat me. Time to get out of here!" He made a dash for the door and see his mates walk out of their cells before the Cap made call.

"Pizza here!" he saluted, "I'm roughed up some, but ready enough." he answered, glad to see they'd all made it out.

"The floor is dusty...", it was sometimes the most ridiculous things that went through your head in high stress situations. Due to his taunting, his tormentors had really gone to work on him, seemingly completely forgetting to ask him any questions. He chuckled to himself, "My instructor from SERE training would be proud, pissing off your tormentors is always an effective method of resistance.". Of course, he now felt, and probably looked, like he'd been dropped through a meatgrinder, but hey, you win some you lose some.

As the door to his cell unlocked, he knew it wasn't his tormentors back for more. Which could only mean that someone had escaped and come to help. He grinned into the dusty floor, and rasped out, chuckling lightly. "What took you so long?". When no response came, he carefully rolled over and saw the empty door. Raising an eyebrow, he got up and carefully stuck his head out the door, then grinned widely as he noticed that everyone else seemed to have been released as well.

As the Cap made the call, he couldn't help himself, he was still kinda giddy from the endorphin rush of getting beaten repeatedly. He snapped into attention, and gave a sloppy salute "Will here.", He grinned again, "After watching nothing but those amateurs for so long, it's good to see someone competent. Even your ugly mug.", he looked around, "So, aside from getting our skinny asses outta this little piece of heaven, what's the plan?".

I nod, glad that everyone is alive. Mostly. I hate to admit it, but the squad's kind of grown on me. "Well, one thing's for certain. This isn't gonna be like that time we destroyed the facility via explosives BEFORE we left." I remembered guards moving through this hallway while I was in my cell, grunting about how heavy armor was, not realizing I understood Chinese. Most likely, they're talking about the power armor. I traced their voices moving left to right. In which case, the door which they took the armor through would be at the right end of the hallway. I ran over to the end, or rather, limped. Damn, solid titanium door. I walk over to one of the guards, and get his key ring. I turn back to unlock the door when the Deathclaw simply rips the shit in half.

"Ok. I guess that works too." I say, walking through the door. The lab is pristine white, unlike the gray of the cells. Our power armor rested in harnesses. Most likely, the Chinese were trying to override the security measures. I walk up to my signature set, lighter and sleeker than the others with my own designs. "I missed you baby," I say with a smile, running my hand across the polished finish. I put my thumb on a receptor in the side of the helmet, and felt the familiar prick as the suit analyzed my DNA.

The armor unlocked with a click and a hiss, as the chest popped open. I put the heavy pieces on in a rush, barely holding in my anticipation. As I snap the helmet in place, I cut on the power.

The armor system roars to life, and I feel endowed with raw power as the servomotors come to life. "WHOOOHOO!" I yell as I slam my fist into a solid steel locker, the metal crumpling like tissue under my blow. The feeling was addictive. It was a rush. And I missed it so much. "We're back in f*cking business baby!" I yell as I grab my favorite weapons, two heavily modded Tri-Beam Laser Rifles I affectionately call "The Twins". The armor is easily strong enough to handle both sources of recoil, and the rifles have rechargers on them so I don't have to reload the weapons. I grab my modified Tesla Cannon and affix it to my shoulder slot. It's a smaller, less powerful version of the original, but modifications give it a higher rate of fire and a recharger.

"Everyone, in case you were wondering what the hell the thing on my wrist is, it's apparently called a Pip-Boy, made by RobCo. If any of you call me Mr. House's bitch, I swear you're getting decommissioned so fast, your armor will still be spinning," I joked while the team was suiting up.

"In all seriousness, our next objective is to incapacitate a Chinese superweapon. And the way the coordinates are moving on my 'Pip-Boy' (What a retarded name), it's most likely a Chinese land carrier. And conveniently, it's returning to this very base, it's a couple hundred meters from here."

All of a sudden artillery shells exploded, shaking the base and causing flecks of rubble to sprinkle down from the roof. "I guess the US artillery's here." I muttered.

In the hallway, I hear chinese official screaming at his troops, interrogating them about how the prisoners escaped. The angry screaming was replaced by terrified screaming and a flurry of chinese swear words and gunfire as the party met our Deathclaw friend.

Yusef prepped his bombs to be used and distributed. Once he reunites with his squad-mates, he'd show up with bombs. The Arabic garb allowed him to conceal bombs and Yusef was ready to blow things up. "Incapacitate? I have bombs for the job." He handed a molotov cocktail to his nearest squad-mate. "In case they come."

He also decided to take some light armor and craft some bombs. Other stuff he was searching for was extra gear to assist him in bomb-making. An emergency weapon would help as he sifted for an energy weapon with some ammunition. A plasma pistol did suit his needs and he took a bit of ammo with him. "This ought to help in narrow corners."

Roxy walks in through the now-bare doorway, only giving the comment of "Glad they're on our side" regarding the deathclaws before entering. She had glanced over the others as Franks' was speaking. They got some nasty bruising to various degrees as well, but they came out of it in one piece.....physicially anyways, she figured after hearing the interesting comments they had to share. Her CO didn't seem to be wasting any time with suiting back up so neither did she. She was in the middle of putting on the main pieces when she saw that he personally was thoroughly enjoying the upgrades the suit entailed. Well, everyone had the right to an opinion. Personally she treated the suit like any other weapon, the fact that they got stalled directly leading to a rescue team of brutes being necessary only proved to Roxy that it wasn't something she wanted to put complete faith in. Not yet anyways.

"I just hope the internal frying these things got last time don't cause too many problems for us." she says aloud after a systems check and hearing the mission, though given the base was now officially under fire she didn't think she'd get a proper answer. Before everyone else sets out she finally places on the helmet to the armor and reaches for her arsenal. Luckily it didn't look like the chinese messed with it too much. She places her two pistols, a blackhawk .44 and a silenced .22, in holsters she made herself. While they could be considered redundant considering what she was packing with the armor on but the two were habits she liked keeping. She grabs a riot shotgun with a strap before placing it over her shoulder and grabbing a big light machine gun to carry around in case anyone is dumb enough to get in her direct path. Not her usual style by a longshot but the armor allowed for lack of subtlety which she admitted would likely be needed. She finished packing extra ammo and waited to move out.

At the sound of the chinese running into their big friends, she scoffs a bit. "So, can the initial part of the plan be to let the big killers have their fun first?" she snarks, expecting a no or some explination about how disabling the weapon would take more "finesse". Either way she didn't care, the armor would be a good crutch to counteract any injuries she'd sustained if nothing else.

Rose looked on as her CO frantically limped around in search of something. She almost giggled, which quickly turned to shock and awe when she saw the Deathclaw easily rips the large door in half. She whistles. Glad that big critter is on our side. She then quickly steps over the cluttered mess and enters the room.

"Now where is my--There it is!" Quickly recognizing her power armor, that she personally outfitted with a very creative paintjob and designs. Rose wrapped her arms around her suit, embracing it, as if it was a friend she hasn't seen in years. It might as well been years, she really couldn't tell, after all it wasn't really her priority when she was held captive. "I missed you too" She muttered releasing her embrace on the power armor, "but don't worry," she continued as she quickly donned her power armor.

"Will pay them back!" She exclaims cheerfully and a little too loudly. Rose grabbed her favorite set of weapons: A pair of 10mm SMG's, a single .223 pistol, and a combat shotgun for the intimidating factor.

After she was done she readily listened to the CO and then she heard the gunfire and screams. "Ok. Chinese Land Carrier, who's taking point?"

Lance whistled in awe as the large, metal door was ripped in half as if it was tissue paper by the creature. Taking a closer look at the beast, the first thought that struck him was that it was an ugly sonofabitch; the second, that he was glad it was on their side. "So, uh... what the hell is that thing, boss? Never seen anything like it."

As the rest of Omega Squad gathered their armor and equipment, he quickly glanced around for his. Spotting his Winterized T-51B power armor first, he quickly slipped it on over his current clothing. Ordinarily equipping the large, cumbersome armor would be no easy task, but years of practice had given him the skills needed to put it on quickly.

Once the armor was on, he took another look around.

"Now, where's my... Oh, hell yeah."

He grinned beneath the helmet as he caught sight of his prized possession: his own, custom-made Super-Sledge. Rapidly jogging over to the table it was resting on and grabbing it, he gave it a few practice swings before bringing it down, hard, on the table. The metal table bent inwards like clay. "Feels good to be back in business." He also grabbed his minigun, as well as a Rocket Launcher, though with less enthusiasm than he did the Sledge.

He remained silent for the next couple of minutes as the boss explained their mission.

They caught me off guard, so I'm slow to react, getting slugged in the right side of my helmet by a propelled grenade. I hit the ground rolling and spring back up, shooting and barking orders, knowing my team's strengths and weaknesses through the blood we've shared, "Lance get the lead with the swords! Yusef, get me an explosive solution on the far wall's weak points! Everyone else, target the guy with the MEC! Go, go, go!"

OOC: If you have a Perception of 5-7, you could sense that the unit was here, you're caught only a little off guard and escape the surprise attack with little damage. If you have a Perception of above 7, you could clearly see the unit, and you are not hit at all. If you have a perception below 5, you're hit solidly. In combat, the RP isn't turned based.

Waiting for Franks to finish his debrief, Roxy decides to ammo check her guns, the beating causing a momentary lapse in that department of memory. She pays for it unfortunately as she only notices the chinese spec ops after she takes several shots to the chest courtesy of some f*ck dual wielding pistols. Feeling not dead, she drops the shotgun she was in the middle of reloading, it falls but the stap emans it just hangs around her waist. She draws up the light machine gun, too out of focus from everything happening at once. SHe hears the orders and decides to act on those.

Shoot the guy with the biggest gun, you can do that right? Roxy taunts herself, teeth grit that she got caught offguard so easily. She combat rolls left to make sure she wasn't in anyone's line of sight and vice versa. She gets up and fires a three round burst at the MEC gunner's neck and head area, letting the recoil ride the aim up the spinal cord. If she wasn't hit badly by then, she'd try to stand upright and move in.

After putting on my armor and arming myself with my weapons, an Anti-Material Rifle sung over my shoulder, hanging on my back, a pair of heavily modified Magneto-Laser Pistols on my hips, equipped with photo-electric cells and rechargers, and a pair of Pancor Jackhammers in my hands. I turned to listen to the briefing.

After a glimmer of something out the corner of my eye, I started moving, just late enough to catch a few shots along the arm.

I hear Cap shouting, and grin to myself "Your will be done boss.", I shout as I point the Jackhammers in the general direction of the designated target, then pull, and hold, the triggers, and send a veritable rain of lead towards the bastard. I may be a sniper at heart, but god I love automatic shotguns...

Pizza learned to be aware after years of being picked on for being different, for having parents that weren't born in the Good Ol' US of A. He'd learned to be aware when he had to smuggle in his favorite foods into Camp Currie. All that time looking over his shoulders to see if someone was sneaking up on him, all that time honing his hearing to catch and learn the patrol routes of the instructors paid off. It was only moments after he'd donned his powered suit and secured his helmet that he jumped behind a stash of consoles, his beloved [url=http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Gatling_laser_(Fallout_3)Gatling Laser[/url] "Rita" cradled affectionately in his armored hands. The consoles were quite a few feet away from him, but the powered armor took care of the distance easily, propelling him farther than a top athelete could ever hope to.

It was in this way that he completely avoided the surprise assault that seemed to have caught his mates unawares, and mentally kicked himself, his helmet hadn't sync'ed up to the rest of the suit and activated his voice box, he was unable to give warning to his buddies. Infuriated he waited for the initial Chinese attack to pass, and then hopped up as Rita warmed up.

"Let them hear you roar Rita!" he yelled out as he sent a stream of red death towards the Chinese.

Roxy's precise aim causes a bullet to seep into the relatively soft neck material in between the helmet and breast plate, causing the MEC gunner to twitch right into Sirmethos' onslaught, caught for the most part by the heavy breast plate. The MEC gunner twitches and jerks the trigger, causing the MEC to fire for about a second in half. Unfortunately, due to the weapons ridiculous fire rate, that means thousands of bullets travelling at significant fractions of the speed of light were sprayed all over the lab, impacting with enough 90 kgs of TNT with each bullet, basically turning the Lab into a war zone. [[In case you're trying to dodge the hail, an agility of 7 is needed to almost completely avoid the bullets, and it gets steadily scaled down from there]].

Ruinus' hail of laser gun fire is deflected by the twin swords of the Chinese leader, the reflective surfaces of the sword dissipating the energy somewhat, although not nearly approaching 100% efficiency. The twin pistol Chinese next to him rolls out of the way to avoid the laser fire, but suddenly, both of them are caught unawares by the bullets from the MEC gunner, damaging their armor to an extent.

I see the MEC gunner go down spectacularly. I try and roll out of the way, and I avoid a lot, but I feel the incredible force as dozens of bullets slam me against the far wall. Seeing stars for a while, I fire my shoulder-mounted Tesla-Beaton at the Chinese with the grenade rifle, who gets a glancing hit on his right shoulder, spinning him. My Pip-Boy then beeps. "Not now you stupid piece of-" I look at the device, and it has the same damn Vault Boy icon on it, with the words V.A.T.S ready beneath it. "What the f*ck is VATS?!" I yell in frustration.

Rose was just waiting paitently for more info, when she started to notice her center of balance began to shift and some pain in her chest. "The he--" Was all she managed to say when she noticed what happened to the enemy MEC Gunner. She attemped to dodge the hail of bullets while trying to take advantage againts the Pistol shooter with aimed, burst shots from her pair of 10MM SMGs.

Successful in dodging the bullets, Rose manages to hit the pistol shooter, off guard already from the MEC rounds. The Chinese soldier with the assault rifle drops low, looks down his sight and attempts to deliver a burst of fire hurling towards Rose's helmet.

As Yusef calculated the explosive, he threw a grenade on the far end of the wall. The boom was predicted to shake up the enemy. The grenade in question was a frag grenade to shake up the enemy and to have kinetic forces at work. If that wasn't enough, he would throw a stick of dynamite. His plasma pistol acted as backup.